Rick Pitino is brutally honest when he looks at the landscape which is The Atlantic Coast Conference, likely the strongest league in college basketball. "I don't know where the wins and losses come from in this conference." Hard to argue when you see a Clemson team seen by many as an also-ran upset Louisville and Duke at home for The Tigers first back-to-back wins over ranked teams since 1989.

So where does that put The Cardinals going into Thursday's 9 pm game hosting formidable 20th ranked Pitt? Good question. especially when Pitino has been outspoken saying U of L must win all its league home games. More from Pitino "there's 3 e's that make up a great team, enthusiasm, effort and execution. We have great enthusiasm, great effort, but we don't have great execution.

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This about a Louisville team was a pre-season after thought by many handicappers. Pitino was on the record in October saying he would not be surprised if this team made Houston's Final Four in April. Many jaws dropped. Not so many now. The fifth year graduate transfers Damion Lee and Trey Lewis have brought priceless maturity, experience, leadership and talent to a program in transition after dramatic losses to graduation and the pros. They fostered a humble and hungry team first attitude that's made these Cards fun to watch as they have fun surprising people. But now the bar has been raised and the goal is clearly a top four ACC finish to get a double-bye to the league's post-season tournament quarterfinals.

To that end it's important to remember we are at the half-way point of the season and this is a team with records of 13-3 and 2-1 and already with one ACC road win in its pocket. 16 games down, 15 left in the regular season. But those 15 are exponentially harder than what's in the rear view mirror. 2 of those 15 games are with Duke. 2 with Pitt. 1 with North Carolina, to mention a few. Just going 8-7 in the remaining 15 games would be large and let The Cardinals finish league play with a 10-8 record. Maybe good enough for a top four finish, but likely not. So they REALLY have to turn it up now with just 7 weeks left before the post-season begins.

The Cards post-season resume right now is ok. An RPI of 28, A Sagarin rating of 8, A strength of schedule of 82. An RPI top 50 record of 0-2. A NCAA seed projection of 6. The guess here is if they can finish these final 15 games at least 8-7 that post-season resume will improve substantially but again, it will require much more from Louisville than its shown up until now and it must happen on a much more consistant basis.

The best news is U of L is even in the conversation about lofty post-season goals. Now, Planet Red red hopes Louisville can take advantage of the surprising platform and launch itself into a much higher orbit.